


bedtime stories to protect the courageous

by bell (bellaboo), bellaboo, usomitai (bellaboo)



Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-11-29
Updated: 2003-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-02 02:30:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellaboo/pseuds/bell, https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellaboo/pseuds/bellaboo, https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellaboo/pseuds/usomitai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fakir tries to keep Mytho from reading; it's for his own good, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bedtime stories to protect the courageous

Like many boys his age, Fakir, deep down inside, believed himself to be invincible. And if not invincible, at least very strong, with the option of reincarnation should the Very Strong thing not work out. (Strong because he was in his past life, and reincarnation because, well, if it happened once why not again?) The scars marring his shoulders and chest didn't scare him; they didn't hurt, and since he didn't remember getting them, they had no negative associations. In fact, they were his point of pride. He loved showing it off to his friends. (He always had a different story to explain how he got them; one time he had saved a damsel in distress from an zoo-escapee rhinoceros. Another time it was from a duel over the life of a young kitten. Yet another version had him fighting pirates. His friends no longer believed him, but they kept on asking anyway. The stories were entertaining.)

*

The one and only time Mytho had expressed a desire for a particular food was when he and Fakir were taking a walk around the pond. An old granny had been there, feeding a flurry of ducks. Mytho watched, entranced. Fakir, equally entranced, watched Mytho. Him being so interested in anything was unheard of. That's why what Mytho said surprised him so much. "What are they eating?"

"Huh?"

"The ducks-- what's that old woman feeding them?"

"Dunno. Bird seed, maybe."

"Bird seed..."

Fakir ended up buying a bag of the stuff. It rattled in his hand as he ran back to Mytho. He had meant to say, you can't eat that, that's for birds not for humans, but he always had a hard time saying 'no' to Mytho (the few times when 'yes' or 'no' was an issue).

*

The lamp's light, piffle at best, shrew dark shadows across the room, accentuating details overlooked in sunlight. Fakir could see the subtle dip of Mytho's collar bone, the shape of the bone forming his wrist. Beneath those covers and pajamas, Fakir knew, Mytho's thighs were no thicker than his arms. The boy was virtually a skeleton.

They did try feeding him. They tried hard. But food, like everything else, held little interest for the Prince-Incarnate. Soups, deserts, raw food, Mytho stared at these all as if he'd never seen them before and knew not what to do with the strange, sometimes steaming, colorful things.

Fakir tried to explain to him the concept of eating ("the body needs food to keep running..."), then tried to give him visuals on how to do it (lift fork, stab item on plate with fork...), and eventually resorted to manually inserting food into Mytho's mouth.

After that Mytho seemed to grasp the rudimentaries of eating.

Yet he never ate much or with any apparent pleasure. Charon tried everything he knew, and once he had exhausted his (admittedly small) repertoire of recipes he hit the books. The things he cooked! He baked, he fried, he stewed, he even marinated. Any normal being would have gobbled it all up. And inevitably Fakir had to, since Mytho never had more than a bite or two.

It was so frustrating. Mytho ate anything and everything in exactly the same way: putting a forkful of food into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully, swallowing, and then putting the fork down. Bread and soufflé were the to same to him, as was cardboard. (Fakir knew precisely how Mytho ate cardboard because once, accidentally, Fakir had fed him some. The offering had been brought on by a stab of curiosity and was more of a joke than anything; there was no maliciousness involved. He didn't think Mytho would actually *eat* it. Yet he tried. Fakir had to make him spit it out.)

"Don't you get hungry?" Fakir asked him once. The answer was frustrating but familiar:

"What's it like to be hungry?"

The one and only time Mytho had expressed a desire for any kind of food was when he and Fakir were taking a walk around the pond. An old granny had been there, feeding a flurry of ducks. Mytho watched, entranced. Fakir, equally entranced, watched Mytho. Him being so interested in anything was unheard of. That's why what Mytho said surprised him so much. "What are they eating?"

"Huh?"

"The ducks-- what's that old woman feeding them?"

"Dunno. Bird seed, maybe."

"Bird seed..."

Fakir ended up buying a bag of the stuff. It rattled in his hand as he ran back to Mytho. He had meant to say, you can't eat that, that's for birds not for humans, but he always had a hard time saying 'no' to Mytho (the few times when 'yes' or 'no' was an issue). So he said nothing and watched, with a sort of relieved happiness, as Mytho thoughtfully ate grain after grain until there was none left in the bag.

But then he threw it all up half an hour later. From then on Fakir quite firmly on “no”-ed bird seed.

*

He heard Mytho call his name, saw the carriage coming at him at full speed, and panick, like a rising tide, overtook him, gulfing all thought. Body paralyzed, not even sure what direction to go in, he felt a weight on his body, heavy and unexpected, throwing him across the road. For a moment Fakir thought it was all over, he was gone and dead. But he realized that the blue he was staring at was the sky, not oblivion, and the excited cries around him were of human and not demons. Relief flooded him. His nerves tingled with a vibrancy he had never known before.

The relief left him quickly, though, when he realized that the hair of the head lying on his chest was white, that the fingers clutching his shoulders were bony, the eyes staring at him intently brown. It was Mytho. Mytho had thrown himself in front of the carriage to save him.

"Are you all right?" Mytho asked.

People were gathering around the scene, whispering, muttering, exclaiming at the bravery of this young man, declaring him a hero. A pain, sharp and loud, made itself known on Fakir's back. It must be because of the impact. Mytho lied on him still, waiting for an answer or any other sign of awareness. The added weight only made Fakir's back hurt more. "Fakir?" Now the voices around them were wondering if maybe the young boy was hurt after all, what a shame, a poor defenseless boy like that--

Fakir pushed himself up, pushed Mytho away. "You're so DUMB! How could you do that?! I'm not one of those stupid animals you have to save!" The crowd gasped in shock at either his sudden revival or his extroadinary rudeness. "You could have gotten hurt, don't you realize that?! I'm nobody, I'm a nothing, I don't want you to get hurt over me--"

*

"It's this book's fault! This is what makes you so stupid, this is what's keeping you from being safe! It's giving you all these dumb ideas, and I won't let it!" Wrenching the book from Mytho's hands, Fakir flung it as hard as he could into the fireplace. It made a satisfying thunk as it landed; even more satisfying was watching the flames lick it.

Mytho surged, arm extended, about to reach into the fire to pull out the disatigrating book. Only Fakir's firm grasp on his shoulder stopped him. "Let it burn!" In that position Mytho stayed, one arm forward, watching as the pages, slowly at first and then with a fierce rapidity, crumbled into black ashes. A soft "ah..." escaped his lips. When the last of the gold-embroidered flickered out of existance, Mytho slumped, eyes closed. His arms hung limply at his side.

For the first time Fakir thought maybe he'd been wrong. "Aw, c'mon, Mytho, it's just a book. There are loads of good other ones. Okay? I'll find you lots of interesting stories, okay? Yeah?"

Head bowed, Mytho made out a small sound that could have equally been affirmative or negative.

*

If before feeding Mytho had been difficult, now it bordered on impossible. Fakir tried everything he could-- cajoling, demanding, providing a good example, shoveling food his into Mytho's mouth-- but nothing could make Mytho eat.

*

"Listen here, Mytho." Fakir mustered all the authority and power he could. "From now on you do everything I tell you to."

"Okay."

"Don't do meaningless things like saving people or animals."

"Okay."

"Understand?"

"Yes."

"Good." Fakir broke out into a smile. It was hard to be fierce for so long! Mytho was his friend-- no, his Prince-- and he was only doing his best to protect him. "Now-- you look really bored."

"Not really."

"Say that all you want but I'm going to read you a bedtime story anyway."

For the first time during the whole conversation Mytho's eyes lit up. He even sat up a little. "Are you going to read me the 'The Prince and Raven?'"

The book's name alone made Fakir glower. "No. I'm never reading that book to you again." He'd ignore how Mytho slumped back into the bed. This was for his sake. It was to protect him. "It puts dumb ideas into your head. Instead I thought we'd try 'The Tales of the Brothers Grimm.'" Actually Fakir had never read the book for himself before, but it had looked appealing, sitting there on the bookshelf. And anything had to be better than the cursed 'The Prince and the Raven.'

*

"Huh? What're you reading?"

Mytho looked up from the book. "Just something," he said vaguely.

Suspicious-- since when would Mytho do anything of his own initiative-- Fakir looked at the book in his lap. And there was that cursed illustration of Princess Tutu being struck down. Anger overtook Fakir. "I thought I told you never to read that again!" He snatched the book from Mytho.

"But--"

"But NOTHING!" With a fling the book fell into the fireplace, its pages withering into ashes within seconds. Mytho gasped slightly, reached out a hand towards the fire. Already it was consumed, gone. Slowly Mytho's hand dropped.

He wouldn't let himself feel guilty. This was for his good. If he couldn't protect the Prince with his sword then he could keep him safe through censorship. "Mytho. Forget about that book."

"...Okay." Was it just his imagination, or did his voice sound more wooden than ever?

"I'll read you another story. This one is really good, '--.'"

"Okay."

And so Fakir opened the book and began to read to an audience that heard not a word.

*

"Don't you think you're too hard on him?" Charon asked.

"Just the opposite; I'm doing him good," Fakir replied darkly.

*

"Welcome back, Fakir," said Mytho.

"Hey, watcha reading? One of the books I bought you?" Fakir asked.

"This? No. It's a book from the library."

"You know how to use the library?"

"Charon showed me how."

"So whaddya get?"

"Nothing much." Mytho flashed him the cover of the book. The Raven and the Prince.

Fakir, jump-running, had covered half the distance between them when Charon grabbed the back of his shirt, which effectively stopped all his forward motion. Fakir made loud complaining noises. Mytho kept on reading.

"CHARON!!" Fakir hated being whiny, but when you're dangling three feet off the ground, legs kicking in the air, it's hard to be anything but.

"You can't stop him from being who he is."

"But... but... why won't he listen to what I say?! It's for his own good--"

"You should know better by now, Fakir. He hears only what he wants to."

As they talked Mytho read over and over again Princess Tutu's short scene. He almost seemed to be smiling.


End file.
